We again woke up early, both about the same time at about
5:30. I got ready quickly and headed out
to for my morning cappuccino and offered to bring coffee back for Linda. She wanted a macchiato and when I ordered it
was asked if I wanted it “Italian style or Starbucks style.” Apparently the Starbucks style is with the
caramel while the Italian style is without (I don’t “do” Starbucks, so really
had no clue so good thing Linda told me “Starbucks style”).
After delivering the macchiato, I headed to my quiet spot
for a while. While I always wake up
early, I’m not really a morning person, and a couple of hours to myself early
in the morning gives me time to write my blog, and to more fully wake up.
There is one lady who I saw the day before and saw again,
who comes and sits nearby. She's also an early riser and we've chatted a few times. Her family is also on this cruise including her two adult daughters who are on their first cruise. I always enjoy talking with people on their first cruise and hearing their impressions.
After returning my laptop to the cabin, I headed to the Lido for another cup of coffee and sat out on the aft
deck near the adults only pool with my kindle.
The sun was out and it was very warm out. I spent quite a while there just enjoying the
weather.
Linda found me out there and we talked for a few minutes,
then decided to go to the special $10 sale the ship was having just to see what
they had. I ended up buying some cute
bags that were like make up or storage bags and were 3 for $10 that I thought I
could bring back for the ladies in the office (it’s not a souvenir from Mexico , but
they are souvenirs from my vacation, and they were cute and would actually be useful).
I had skipped breakfast and was hungry, so I told Linda I
was going up for pizza for lunch. She
said she hadn’t had the pizza on board, and I told her how much I like and look
forward to Princess pizza, so after dropping off our purchases in the cabin, we
headed up to the Lido pool where the pizza
grill was located. Princess always has
the cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza, and one specialty pizza that changes each
day. I had a slice of the pepperoni
which is one of my favorites along with the specialty which included ham and bell
peppers. Linda said she thought it was
really good, and went back for more. The
Princess pizza has a very thin crust pizza and reminds me of the pizza in Italy , and is
advertised as the “Best pizza at sea.”
Not sure who decided that, but I would tend to agree with them. (To be honest, I haven’t been on all the
different cruise lines’ ships, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. Hmmmm, wonder if someone would finance all my
cruises so that I could do the full review—I’d be happy to publish my
findings.)
After lunch, I went for a walk around the top decks. The Crown Princess isn’t laid out quite the
same as the other ships I had been on.
For one thing, the big screen known as MUTS (movies under the stars) was
over the first pool just outside the Lido
buffet. On other ships, this is a
covered pool, while the next one was an outside pool with MUTS. On the Crown Princess, the first pool isn’t
covered at all, so there are two outdoor pools midship. MUTS was playing a lot of children’s movies
during the day on this cruise (Beauty and the Beast, and The Peanuts Movie for
example) and there were quite a few children around, but for the most part, the
children did seem to be well behaved (not the case on all cruises). I think they should change the name of MUTS
to “Movies under the Sky” instead of under the stars since they do play movies
during the day.
Another difference is that you can walk all the way forward
on the upper deck and look out over the bow of the ship; that isn’t the case on
all ships. The Crown Princess also had
the new upcharge restaurant, the Salty Dog, a pub-type restaurant with music. I’ve heard it’s good with some gourmet pub
food served, but can’t see spending the additional $19 charge to have a
“gourmet burger” (yikes, much more than the $6 burger). The hamburger grill on the Lido
deck was located in the same place, but the pizza was at the other end of the
pool—instead of forward of the pool, port side, it was aft of the pool port
side. The ice cream bar was next to the
pizza grill instead of on starboard side.
Still, the ship is enough like other Princess ships, that I
feel at home on board. The cabins are
still numbered the same with even cabins on the left, or port side—all four
letters—while odd cabins are on the right, or starboard side; the red striped
carpet on port side while the blue striped carpet on the starboard side. I always thought they should have reversed
that so that everything on the port side was four letters long (port, left,
even, blue), but unfortunately, the color of the carpet doesn’t follow that pattern. Most of the main venues, Princess Theater, Lido buffet, Club Fusion, Skywalkers, etc., are the same
and are located in the same place.
The ship isn’t in bad shape, but the mattress definitely
could use replacing since there is a little dip in the middle, but not enough
to interfere with my sleep. I’ve heard
that Princess is upgrading all the beds and mattresses with pillow-top
mattresses, and I know that a lot of long-time Princess cruises is looking
forward to that.
Most of the afternoon was spent doing very little, except
relaxing and reading. I thought about
participating in trivia since I’ve enjoyed that on other cruises, but never
quite got around to it. Late afternoon,
I had a refreshing pina colada at the aft adult pool area (so far, this cruise,
I’ve had one for my dad, one for my mom, one for me, and this one is for one of
my friends). While it was a little
crowded (almost every lounger was taken or “reserved” with towels), it was much
quieter out there with no children in the pool, no MUTS playing, and no band
playing music as there was at the other pools.
The previous night , there had been such a long line to the
dining room at 5 when they opened, so Linda and I thought we might avoid that
by going a little later. We got dressed
and headed to the dining room a little after 7:00 and were quickly seated at a
table for 8, the same table we had been seated at the night before. There was one other couple there, and a
family of three were seated shortly after us.
We introduced ourselves, and talked a little about what we had planned
for the different Mexican ports.
It was Italian night which I always enjoy, and I had the
same meal I always seem to order on Italian night: eggplant parmesan, minestrone, veal
scaloppini, and tiramisu. Afterward I
headed to the casino for a little while, where I very quickly lost $50, so I
headed back to the cabin early.
There was a time change tonight, so I moved the clock and my
watch forward one hour, then got ready for bed and was asleep fairly early by
10:30 (which would have been 9:30 before I changed the clock).
Tomorrow we would arrive at our first port of call, Puerto Vallarta .
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